


Candour

by aderyn



Series: Two Hills [5]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: TRF, dialogue about the dead, over breakfast, witnesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-04
Updated: 2012-06-04
Packaged: 2017-11-06 19:00:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/422113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aderyn/pseuds/aderyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Does that make me… the prince of what’s over?” Sherlock says, taking the smallest bite of wholemeal toast imaginable.<br/>“It doesn’t make you any sort of royalty at all,” says John, pushing his laptop over the surface of their breakfast table. “When was the last time you had a common thought?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Candour

 

_“Comet of stillness princess of what is over…even now you are unharmed even now perfect…”—W.S. Merwin, “The Vixen”_

 

“Does that make me… the prince of what’s over?” Sherlock says, taking the smallest bite of wholemeal toast imaginable, “the _king_ of untimely endings, the _duke_ of the dead? “

“It doesn’t make you any sort of royalty at all,” says John, pushing his laptop over the surface of their breakfast table. “When was the last time you had a common thought?”

Sherlock doesn’t answer and John knows he’s just said “can’t recall” or “never” to himself.  He reaches over and takes the second slice of butter-scraped toast from Sherlock’s plate; it’ll never get eaten.

John had just proposed that in the best interests of the blog they needed to think more about how to present  themselves in relation to well, homicide, how to recount their continual dialogue with the dead without beginning to come off as morbid.  It’s something he’s struggled with.  He’s not interested in spin; he’s interested in a good story, but there have been a lot of murders lately and here he is again, writing about death.

And Sherlock, though he’s probably joking about the birthrights, (and mocking John’s occasional attraction to the darkly whimsical) clearly thinks he’s distinguished by his exceptional familiarity  with demises —and of course his virtuosity with closure, as that’s what he, consulting genius, can deliver with more flair than anyone else in the world, world without end.

But the world does end, John thinks, or our corners of it do; they fold over and fall in and we aren’t prepared; we never are. He’s certainly  seen people ready to die but mostly what he’s seen is people who cling to the earth (or the ether ) they came from, what put them here, what made them _I_ and _me_.

“What do you think happens when we die?” John says suddenly.  (Sherlock, once: _we don’t really go to heaven._ No, of course not, that’s too mundane, too dull; that’s all weekend piety and the C of E.) Sherlock puts down the crust he’s toying with and looks at him.

It seems they must have had this conversation; they ought to have done, considering. How can a doctor-solider and a murder expert who’ve stood together in a building full of snipers and put themselves in harm’s ways on the regular and who breathe the same oxygen nearly every night and know one another’s blood types and sleeping patterns and are generally more aware of one another as homeostatic organisms than most who’ve lived together far longer, not have talked about death, not really, certainly not their own. They must have done. But they haven’t.

Sherlock looks at him.  There’s a glint in the teaspoon he’s holding, a tiny dot of what might be blood on the collar of his open-necked shirt (shaving?) and a single pale hair threading through the darkness over his left ear.

“I think that’s really more your area than it is mine, John,” he says.

“Yeah, maybe,” John says, ( _I stopped praying in the desert_ ),”but you must have an opinion. There must be something you’ve …observed that gives you a clue.”

“I,” Sherlock says. He stops, puts the teaspoon down.”I suppose some things don’t need a witness, but I’ve never really put much stock in those.”

“What does that mean?” John says. (It’s not the first time he’s said that, and it won’t be the last.)

“It means that whatever it is that I, that we, signify, it doesn’t cease to exist if there’s a witness.”

“I see,” says John,” I think.”

Sherlock takes a sip of tea. John types, “ _Witnesses. We like our work.”_ in a blank Word doc and then deletes it. They go on.

(Later, much later; a year after he’s forgiven Sherlock for the roof, for dying, John recalls this exchange for the thousandth time or so and thinks again, like a mantra: _You’re dead; you’re alive again_ ; _you’re 39; you’re 13; you’re 58; it doesn’t matter.  I see you.  I remember you.  You’re here._ )

 

 


End file.
